Deadly Voyage – The Cost Of Irregular Migration.

Countries all over the world have laws that control and regulate the movement of people from one place to another. Illegal migration involves the movement of people across borders without the requisite documentation. The European Union and other scholars are of the view that there is no universally accepted definition for irregular migration.

According to the EU, the term irregular migration can be defined from the perspective of destination countries. It is entry, stay or work in a country without the necessary authorization or documents required under immigration regulations. From the perspective of the sending country, the irregularity involves a person crossing another border without a valid passport or travel document or does not fulfil the administrative requirements for leaving the country.

The EU posits that the term “illegal migration” has been associated with criminality which should not be the case. Living in a country without the requisite document does not make one a criminal, it only means that the person has infringed an administrative procedure of the host country.

According to statistics on the European Commission website, the EU was home to about 22.3 million migrants as at 1^st January 2018. This numbers may not be different from other continents which is the preferred destination of African migrants.

One other type of migration is the undocumented immigrants, this term is used to describe people who live in a place without permission and the authorities have no record of them. These are mostly people who travel to these countries for tourism, education or for health purposes and in one way or the other have refused to return to their home countries after the expiration of their visas. People who travel to these countries with fake documents also fall under the category of undocumented migrants this is so because the host country does not have the requisite data about them.

Human trafficking is also another form of irregular migration, this involves people traveling by sea, land and any other means to find work in the host country, this type of migration may be legal or illegal depending on the processes involved.

In most cases the victims are organized groups that are lured with lucrative job offers in Asia and the middle East. The middle men most often fail to paint the real picture of the conditions in the host country, they take huge sums of money from victims with the promise of making life better for them. There are instances where others also travel on their own through the Sahara Desert ending up in Libya or some of the north African countries before connecting to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea. Most of these travelers end up being robbed of their money, die on the desert or drown in the sea. The women are sometimes raped and all manner of inhuman treatment meted out to them.

Human trafficking is a big business all over the world, this is as a result of the lack of opportunities in most African countries, corruption on the part of the leaders and the unfavorable business environment are the major challenges that forces people to move out of their countries for greener pastures.

In the recent past, there have been stories in the media about how people who were promised of good jobs in foreign countries have ended up working as prostitutes or been maltreated by their host. The government of Ghana for instance has placed a temporary ban on some of these agencies that recruit people to work in Asia and Middle East. This is a positive step, but this temporary ban may not be the panacea to the human trafficking situation. The solution is for the government to regularize the activities of the agencies responsible for recruiting people overseas and also ensure that it works with governments of host nation to ensure that their citizens are treated well and protected from inhuman treatments.

It is high time, leaders of the continent put in measures to save the youth from this risky adventure. Creation of job opportunities, good leadership and education is what would save the youth of the continent from this risky adventure.

Mustapha Jimah.
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The writer is a former consular officer at the Netherlands Embassy in Ghana and currently the CEO of Musjima Ventures. His interest is in travel matters and migration issues. For enquiries call or whatsapp me on 0262677946